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Sunday, November 4, 2012

Parents and teachers should unite against this attack on education!

The National Party is now really showing its true colours when it comes to education. The gloves are off. Unless teachers and parents form a solid coalition, all that has been gained for our students and education in general will be whittled away. Hardly a week goes by when there is not some sort of attack on teachers, ‘realignment’ or cutting of funds.

The latest announcement that two Special Schools will be closed is just one of many such moves. They are playing two cards; one economic---that is to cut government spending and the other is ideological. The National Party has an agenda; one that includes Charters Schools and diverting funding to the ‘Old Boy Network’ of private schools.

The only way that we can stop these damaging moves is for parents and teachers to stand together and fight. In the end, it is only at the ballot box that any real difference can be made.

That the National party has not fallen in the polls is only an encouragement for them to follow through with even more of their destructive policies. What we cannot be sure about of course is that the Labour Party and its possible coalition partners will be able to turn back the clock when they eventually get their chance to reside on the Treasury benches.

One gets the feeling that Ms Parata is the ‘fall guy’ for National/Act policies and to a lesser extent the Maori Party. That they have allowed their vote to be used to prop up this Government as it passes contentious policies through Parliament will bring a time of reckoning with their own people.

In the meantime, we need to take every opportunity to at least slow down the march towards some sort of Third World Educational system. In the end, we all suffer as we enter a hard new world where our kids have missed out, especially those at the bottom of the economic heap. The days of a fair New Zealand have long gone.